Unemployment rate drops; private sector jobs jump

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By Lesley Weidenbener
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – The state’s unemployment rate dropped again in November as Indiana gained more private sector jobs than any other state in the nation.

state’s rate of 7.3 percent is still higher than the national rate of 7 percent but lower than any of Indiana’s neighbors.

unemployment chart Nov 2013

 

Indiana added 25,300 jobs, the largest one-month increase for the state on record, with gains in trade and transportation, construction, manufacturing and professional and business sectors.

The jobs report came even as the state’s fiscal leaders heard an economic forecast that projected tax receipts will be lower than expected through June 30, 2015.

Still, Gov. Mike Pence said the jobs numbers “are welcome news to every Hoosier and are a testament to the hard working people of our state and the businesses that power Indiana’s economy every day.

“The continued downward trend in unemployment and the significant growth in private sector jobs demonstrate that Indiana’s economy is strong and growing stronger every day,” he said.

But House Minority Leader Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City, said the jobs numbers don’t mean much if income is not also rising. Currently, Indiana trails the nation in per-capita income and the gap has ben growing.

“There should be no shock to see the state’s unemployment numbers going down as we head into a holiday season,” Pelath said. “Indiana’s largest employer is Walmart.  It should be obvious and predictable that our biggest gains would be in the service sector.”

“I am glad that there are more folks able to pick up work around the holidays,” he said. “But I’m sure we also can agree that this is not a path to prosperity.”

The state’s unemployment rate has dropped significantly throughout this year. Just last summer, 8.5 percent of Hoosiers were unemployed.

“It is encouraging that fewer Hoosiers are unemployed than in November of 2008, and the unemployment rate has dropped by more than a percentage point over the past few months,” said Scott Sanders, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Workforce Development. “However, we need to keep the ball moving by strengthening Indiana’s pro-growth climate.”

Lesley Weidenbener is executive editor of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin 

42 COMMENTS

  1. Rtw low wage $8/hr jobs with no bennies. The new norm for our plutocracy.

  2. The real new normal is the USA is becoming a part time nation thanks to Barry Obama and company. If Barry’s name had been mentioned in the article all the libtards would be hailing this as wonderful news.

    • The “new normal” part time job has been evolving for the last forty years, not the last several! Remember back then when this country set the standard and controlled the pricing of raw material it used? The national debt was less then $300 billion total? Most people were employed with a “living wage” and very few depend on their local township government hardship handout? Everyone enjoyed a piece of the pie of success?

      Remember when the upper income members devised their plan of beating down their due income, ect. taxes that allowed them to earn more and pay in less? This set up the buying and selling of other companies, and parts of companies? This destroyed many good paying jobs. Granted, new technology does eliminate jobs that become obsolete. Federal, state and local governments began filling in for these lost incomes by creating additional public jobs and construction.

      Past 25-30 years, both demo’s and repub’s at the federal level have allowed U.S. companies to outsource the manufacture and other jobs to cheap foreign labor markets and come back duty free. Now look at our governments debt. 17 trillion and rising. This is from the lack of taxes that would had happen if we would make what we consumed, and the government trying to keep those without those jobs of going hungry.

      What does not add up when part time and full time jobs are at poverty rates and the “Dow” is at a all time high?

      As I browse thru a Kohls store today, I see the cost of Levi jeans costing 150% more then when they were made in the U.S.A. a short several years back. I seen two sport shirts costing $60 total from a country that would be that sweetshop workers total income for a month.

      The products are being made pennies on a dollar overseas, come in duty free, and we are expected to pay “full price” as if produced here. Oh, I see why the 16,000 level has been reached for the wealthy.

      • Exactly. It’s called ethics, and Bain Capital Romney types don’t have any. Good thing they can’t take all they Cayman Islands money with them to hell, which is where they’re going.

        • We never took you for a judgmental evangelical but it is interesting to know that you are a member of that fraternity.

          • I’m very agnostic, but if there is a hell, I sure hope people who exploit modern slavery end up there.

      • “Free Trade”– a strategy that could be described as, “Out-sourced” Colonialism,–where the “Resource” of poor third world populations are “harnessed” by The Man, to “Make”– that bottom line,–“Bigger”.

        • It’s always amusing to me to hear the arguments against free trade. You might as well be saying, “Those people don’t deserve jobs; only blue-blooded, unionized, overpaid Americans deserve a job with a steady wage. ‘Those people’ are savages, willing slaves, too stupid to understand the injustice of their station. Damn the Anerican consumer, too! How dare he wish to pay the lowest possible price for a good or service! It’s anti-American. It’s unpatriotic. It’s unfair! We need to level the playing field. We need wage controls. We need price controls. We need putative tariffs. WE NEED EXCLUSION, ISOLATIONISM, AND ASSURANCES our workers get a $25 a week raise instead of a $100 cut in price on the goods and services they buy. In short, we need less freedom and more control…but only by those approved politicians and union officials who have neither created a job in their lives nor worked a real one.”

          • Do companies and their stockholders reimburse the federal, state, and local governments for lost taxes of employment and the spending of wages, and for what the government spends to keep the displaced workers from the wolf’s door?

            Are we still waiting for that Whirlpool refrigerator that is $100 cheaper and had came “duty free” verses when the last one ran off the assembly line in Evansville?

            What is un-patriotic is business without borders and/or no allegiance to the U.S.A. which include us citizens.

            There is a reason that this country went from where most people working, earn a living and the national debt was $300 million to now 17 trillion debt and many on poverty wages while the wealthy are enjoying the record stock market.

          • I said nothing of the sort,–don’t put words in my mouth, with your blanket rant
            ,–if you don’t believe there is an exploitation by business, of the indigent adults and children in impoverished countries,– just so you can enjoy a low price, and the big boys a bigger profit on the backs of those with nothing,
            — just say so out front!—lets hear it!
            Or am I putting words in your mouth?

          • Armstrongres: How is it the responsibility of employers if governments have decided to provide a safety net with tax dollars first generated from their activities? Your ideas are protectionist and do not work.

            Crash, I wasn’t referring to you. I was speaking more generally.

      • July 19, 2012.

        The Senate had a vote on a Democratic bid to use tax incentives to bring overseas jobs home or not send them there in the first place. Under the bill (S 3364) businesses would receive a 20 percent tax credit for expenses associated with returning overseas jobs and operations to the Good Ole USA.

        The bill also would deny companies tax deductions for the cost of outsourcing any part of their business to another country.

        Naturally the Pubs filibustered it and all voted against it so it could not get the 60 votes to make it law.

        Merry Christmas suckers

        • First of all, the amount of money involved is trifling. According to the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation, this bill’s deduction disallowance provision will only raise about $14 million per year. That’s 14 million, not billion.

          Let’s put that in perspective. This bill is supposedly a critical tax incentive to create jobs here in the United States. Yet according to the JCT, it will only raise about $14 million per year. Meanwhile, President Obama’s campaign has now spent $24 million on ads attacking outsourcing.

          http://www.finance.senate.gov/newsroom/ranking/release/?id=fe617521-eea2-4ae9-afb9-5ba5df4b52ed

          Merry Christmas to you too.

    • I find the name “libtards” extremely offensive to the mentally challenged. I’m a liberal, but I’ve been called much worse. It just offends me for those who have challenges because it is meant in such a mean-spirited, demeaning way.

  3. Woo Woo! This article is like the articles written about gasoline prices that are described as “crashing down”, when they have only dropped a penny.

  4. Anyone worried about the price of a specific good, such as Levi jeans (as mentioned above), you have a couple free market solutions with which to strike back, neither of which involve running and whining to Nanny Gov’t…

    One: you can refuse to buy jeans you suspect are overpriced. This is the simplest form of economic retaliation available to any consumer. Simply vote with your dollars. If you disapprove of Levi’s, buy Wranglers.

    Two: you can start your own jeans company, employ whoever you like, charge whatever you like, and raise the startup money anyway you like, including refusing to take on investors, who will surely like to see a return. Best to use your own money, that way you can be as charitable as you like for as long as it will, or can, last as a charity. Good luck with that.

          • If it was easy, everybody would do it.

            It was the best thing I ever did, changed my whole perspective, if I were to go back to working for the man today I would be the model employee that I wasn’t then. But that ain’t happening.

    • Have not bought Levi’s in years, and Wranglers are assemble in Mexico with U.S. components.

      When one complains of the federal government printing money, or government handing out money to the unemployed or under paid employees, thank those free market advocates.

      • You are confused about what ‘free market’ means. What we have had for the last 100 years or so is not a ‘free market’. True free market advocates also advocate money markets free from fiat and convertible to tangible assets such as gold and silver, which we have not had for 80 years. They also advocate against any form of welfare, including corporate welfare, which accounts for a larger portion of the total welfare doled out than individual ‘safety net’ welfare.

        How is it you suppose free market advocates are to blame for fiat currency and welfare? You are ascribing beliefs to people who do not espouse them. Furthermore, the result if we followed your ideas to their logical end is socialism, state-owned means of production, isolationism, economic warfare, limited freedoms, and all the substandard living conditions that accompany such types of societies. I think you are thinking way too topically. You have not taken the time to extrapolate your ideas and understand what a disaster they really are.

        There is NO SYSTEM that man has devised that is capable of producing 100% employment or equal wealth distribution. There is no perfect system; there are only fairer, freer, more equitable systems. Capitalism is the best system we’ve found. It’s the one that allows us to sit in relative comfort and find the time to debate on electronic contraptions while a machine washes our clothes. It is the struggle by some to make the system ‘more fair’ for themselves and their friends which causes most of the problems. Your ideas of protectionism, including wage and price controls and even FORCED patriation of companies who wish to take their manufacturing operations elsewhere are great examples of the kinds of disastrous meddling we must avoid if we want the American experiment to last another century.

        • I think you’ll find that a “mixed econcomy” really works best, Brad. I don’t want a private fire or police department, and I don’t want a publicly owned grocery store.

          • I accept that police and fire have long traditions of public funding, but they also have long traditions of private funding. One thing is certain, police forces across the country have been responsible for more deaths since 2000 than all terrorist attacks combined. There is clearly room for improvement.

      • If you don’t like Wranglers or Levi’s, buy Glenn Beck’s jeans. His are USA made and he seems to share your disdain for Levi’s. plenty of American-made options there for you. None of them will be less expensive, but that’s ok with you. Price isn’t important for you; just as with Beck, it’s patriotism that matters for folks like you. Do let us know which jeans you decide to buy and how good and patriotic they’ve made you feel.

        http://m.complex.com/style/2012/10/10-american-denim-brands-that-arent-owned-by-glenn-beck

    • brad starting your own company is called taking some initiative and hard work………it is obvious the jealous toads would rather cry and moan and take from the success of the smart and hard working among us…….

      • The real plutocrats don’t work. First generation rich guys like Gates are not included in this group. Also notice guys like Gates who actually worked for it tend to donate a lot to charity. I don’t count Romney’s tithing as charity.

        • Dude, Romney made his own money. He gave away every dime of his inheritance. If tithes to the Morman church don’t count as charity then tithes to the Catholics and Protestants shouldn’t either. What if the little Gates’ grow up and do something big.

          • Oh please. If you think Romney would’ve been able to start with zero capital and connections after he dodged the draft and gone on to become nasty rich I’ve got some Kentucky ocean front property to sell you.

            • Romney had some advantages for sure and he leveraged them. But the reality is that he did earn lots of money from Bain whether you like the things he did or not. There are plenty of privileged people who have lesser success or even fail miserably. Your premise would also apply to the President of the United States who was admitted to colleges he would have never gotten into without playing the equal opportunity rules. The same leveraging of the race card applies to his defeat of Hillary in the 2008 primary and in winning 2 presidential elections. Everyone milks their advantages. Romney was just better at it than most when it came to money. Seriously dude, if Obama had been white Romney would have won the last election.

        • Absolutely! He’s trying to buy salvation. I don’t think he’s such a sharp investor, afterall.

      • The US and the UK are not at THE BOTTOM of social mobility in the developed world.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility

        Regardless of how hard any one idividual works the income bell curve remains the same. Some move to the right on the curve due to ingenuity and hard work, by definition another person must move to the left.

        The same is true of the wealth distribution curve in fact its skewed to the left now more than ever in our country’s history. The Federal Reserve has our country’s net worth at $90T, a $15T increase since 2008 and less than 3M people controll $40T of that $90T.

        The Horatio Alger myth holds strong in conservoworld

        • You ignore the fact that the center of that bell curve migrates over time with respect to lifestyle. Any one with a bit of grey matter knows that people today live better than cavefolk did. It is also obvious that life in this country for the average or even the lowest person on the curve is better today than it was 100 or even 50 years ago. Much of that is because of the inventions in medicine, transportation, education, etc. It does seem as though the pendulum attached to the center of the lifestyle bell curve has swung the wrong way in recent history. You everyday schmuck was better off in Y2k than they are now. Thank the dope twins GWB and BHO for that. Runaway spending, snooping on citizens and socializing everything by these two buffoons has set us back by at least 2 decades. BHO = GWB = third world country.

          • +1000…..i will add lbj and big government sent us on a downward spiral along with nixon and his appeasement to the progressive left and the incompetent progressive jimmy carter…..the landslide of big government was stopped by Mr.Reagan and the country again flourished for 30 years……but slowly with the help of the radical liberal media big government and the welfare state came roaring back and now under commie barry obama America is being destroyed from with in….. http://www.usdebtclock.org/

          • You are correct. Most rural Americans in 1940 still did not have electricity, running water, indoor plumbing, and cooked on woodburning stoves, sometime slept 2-3 to a twin bed, froze in the winter, roasted in the summer and only had water from the well or raw milk fromt he cow to drink.

            However, I credit capitalism AND Government programs for the tremendous increase in the standard of living. Many, many Americans were saved from starvation and death by the WPA, CCC, and pulled themselves up to the middle class throught the GI Bill, working on the national highway system or jobs in the military, FBI, HUD, etc.

            The Reagon/Bush tax cuts increased the income and wealth inequality e.g. 90% of the benefit of reduced capital gains tax goes to the top 0.005%. No that’s not a type, the top 1/2 of 1% reap 90% of the capital gains tax benefit.

            I’m not sure what the total answer is but I sure as heck know that more tax cuts for the rich and corporate tax cuts(right to the CEO’s pocket) are NOT the answer.

            • I appreciate your candor and agree with much of your post. I will add that this is also no time to raise taxes on anyone and that goes double for high earners who are already at a marginal tax rate at over 50% in many states. There should never ever be any situation where any earning is taxed at over 50%. As for corporate taxes we are among the highest in the western world. Remember how easy it was to find a job in the 80’s and the wealth expansion in the 90’s? You can thank Reagan for both of those things with credit to Clinton for keeping his fellow Democrats from ruining it. GWB and BHO have been devastating to the economy of the country and the attitude of the people. My former governor Mr. Carter damn near wrecked the country after Nixon made us all think politicians are crooks. Obama is way worse than Carter and he is arrogant about his ignorance.

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